[SOLVED] New user worried about Microsoft

[ricky25]

Hi, I recently built a new mini pc and installed Linuxmint 18.3, which is running great. The last time I tried any linux distro was Ubuntu 10?

You all probably know that microsoft bought Gethub, and is very likely going to buy conical and take over Ubuntu, does this mean they will have control or ownership of linuxmint, which is based on Ubuntu. I'm very worried about this, if I've written anything factually incorrect I apologize.

[Moem]

I think you meant GitHub and Canonical, but those are just typos... it happens.
In any case, Linux Mint is not owned by Canonical, so buying that would not make anyone owner of Linux Mint.

[gm10]

This reminds me: https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-buys-ca ... x-forever/

For more Microsoft tinfoilhattery better post in the open chat part of the forum.

[michael louwe]

You all probably know that microsoft bought Github, and is very likely going to buy Canonical and take over Ubuntu, does this mean they will have control or ownership of linuxmint, which is based on Ubuntu. I'm very worried about this.

.
Not likely. No need to worry.

Even if this were to happen, LM can turn directly to Debian as its base, ie bypasses the M$-owned Ubuntu. Linux users can also opt for non-Ubuntu-based distros, ... https://itsfoss.com/non-ubuntu-beginner-linux/

[Pepi]

I have a friend that owns a NAPA autoparts store. He called me today and was having trouble with Windows 10 on his 5 machines. I went in to try and help him. OMG Windows 10 is the biggest mess I've ever seen. It has something to do with the Microsoft Edge that was downloaded from the NAPA corp two days ago. They were just using Explorer before. I told him I could be no help with that but I did help them out by installing Chrome on the computers so they could get to their email. WOW ... Microsofty

[gm10]

I have a friend that owns a NAPA autoparts store. He called me today and was having trouble with Windows 10 on his 5 machines. I went in to try and help him. OMG Windows 10 is the biggest mess I've ever seen. It has something to do with the Microsoft Edge that was downloaded from the NAPA corp two days ago. They were just using Explorer before. I told him I could be no help with that but I did help them out by installing Chrome on the computers so they could get to their email. WOW ... Microsofty

I think Windows 10 is great, I think Microsoft bashing is boring, in fact it's outright hilarious bashing them because of some random company having trouble reading emails in their browser when over here interaction between a mint package and the current boot loader package prevents successful installations and the current kernel breaks the boot process plus a bunch of other things.

but really --> off topic chat

[KBD47]

There were lots of concerns raised in the Linux community about MS buying Github when first announced. Some Linux folks moved to Gitlab. Others have taken a 'wait and see' approach.
I would not be surprised if Canonical sold out to MS. But no news on that front right now.
Mint would do just fine with a Debian base, and Linux Mint Debian edition beta should be out in a few weeks. Most users would not notice a difference with a Debian base, and Debian has a huge number of packages. So regardless of what Ubuntu/Canonical does in the future, Mint will be good to go.

[altair4]

Instead of being worried about Microsoft buying or not buying Canonical the Mint user should be worried that one day the fella that runs Mint decides to chuck it all and becomes a sheep farmer.

[thx-1138]

..........................

...i think you also forgot mentioning possible ext4 corruption since late April mid February...
(yet still, Win10 is far from great)

[Pepi]

I have a friend that owns a NAPA autoparts store. He called me today and was having trouble with Windows 10 on his 5 machines. I went in to try and help him. OMG Windows 10 is the biggest mess I've ever seen. It has something to do with the Microsoft Edge that was downloaded from the NAPA corp two days ago. They were just using Explorer before. I told him I could be no help with that but I did help them out by installing Chrome on the computers so they could get to their email. WOW ... Microsofty

I think Windows 10 is great, I think Microsoft bashing is boring, in fact it's outright hilarious bashing them because of some random company having trouble reading emails in their browser when over here interaction between a mint package and the current boot loader package prevents successful installations and the current kernel breaks the boot process plus a bunch of other things.

but really --> off topic chat

They do a lot of their business by reading emails Maybe 19 is buggy but Mint 18.3 is solid as steel

[gm10]

..........................

...i think you also forgot mentioning possible ext4 corruption since late April mid February...
(yet still, Win10 is far from great)

Not forgot as much as there's no point in starting to make a list. Launchpad counts over 136k open bug reports for Ubuntu alone. I'm sure after filtering the invalid, duplicate or otherwise irrelevant reports there'll be plenty enough left over to make my point. So nobody should try to get on any high horses, it's all just buggy software on either side.

[ricky25]

Thank you all for your replies, and sorry for my typos, Canonical and Github of course. I'd just started with computing again and learning about linux, then I read about Microsoft buying up Github but feel much better that Linuxmint won't be afected.

Knowing Microsofts EEE strategy I feared for the worse, after recent events it looks like one April fools joke that sadly maybe coming true for Ubuntu. Thanks again.

[rado84]

Even if this were to happen, LM can turn directly to Debian as its base, ie bypasses the M$-owned Ubuntu. Linux users can also opt for non-Ubuntu-based distros, ... https://itsfoss.com/non-ubuntu-beginner-linux/

Which would be sad, if it were to happen. Cuz non-ubuntu (non-debian) based distroes are... well, they're not like Mint. There's no Synaptic in them, no Software Manager, no easy commands like "sudo apt-get install" and everything is unnecessarily hard. There's even a command which sounds a lot like "yoghurt". Which is why I like Mint so much and despite the recent problems with microcode-kernels, I keep coming back to it. I tried Arch based, suse-muse, Fedora, even some free derivative of RedHat and there's no other distro like Mint.

[ricky25]

That was my main concern to about non Ubuntu and Debian based systems.

[lsemmens]

I don't particularly care who "owns" my system, as long as it does what I need it to, when I need to do it. Isn't that what most require of a computer.

[catweazel]

M$-owned Ubuntu

Nonsense.

[Moem]

M$-owned Ubuntu

Nonsense.

No, a hypothetical:

Even if this were to happen

I'm sure that you know what 'if' means.

[catweazel]

M$-owned Ubuntu

Nonsense.

No, a hypothetical:

Even if this were to happen

I'm sure that you know what 'if' means.

Of course, I could be wrong

[michael louwe]

Nonsense.

No, a hypothetical:

Even if this were to happen

I'm sure that you know what 'if' means.

Of course, I could be wrong

Nonsense.

[newbi462]

I hate to feed things like this, but while not the most likely thing, I think the concern is what MS did to Skype, or for that matter Apple to Serie: just to get off the MS BACH CHAIN.

There is a history of when these things get BOUGHT the quality deteriorates, and some "updates" end up being more about striping features or breaking compatibility more than they are about improvements. But as has been pointed out MINt already has LMDE project that is about WHAT IF UBUNTU WAS GONE?

Debian was what Ubuntu used as a base, and because Ubuntu was so popular(and more end-user ready than Debian at the time) Mint built on top of Ubuntu.


SO WORST CASE: there is a year or 4 of disruption, things built for Linux assuming Linus=Ubuntu would break and need hacks to make them work as well, but there is a good community here and more than one person that would post the CHANGE LINE X TO BE Y hack to do that. But that would not fix everything. But in short order, there would either be UPDATES that fix that from developers; as in my case more than one piece of software is a PAID PRODUCT, or free to me that pays the dev team for me using it...

At the end of the day 5 years later there would be a NEW KING OF LINUX, and the likely runners are Debian based or Arch based.